Social Responsibility in Mental Health Recovery

How might you balance social responsibility and mental health recovery? In my mental health recovery, I have had to consider what responsibilities I have to myself vs. social responsibility.

Responsibilities I have to myself, like setting healthy boundaries, cultivating the discipline to build healthy habits, and practicing self-care are very important. It's taken me many years to discover, understand, and actually accomplish these responsibilities, but as I slowly master it, I'm starting to wonder, have I been shirking my social responsibility? How does social responsibility play into mental health recovery?

Practice Social Responsibility Without Neglecting Your Mental Health Recovery

A big problem with me is that I tend to be all-or-nothing. I can either devote all my time and energy to my own self-improvement, or I can completely ignore my own wellbeing to help those around me. I've never been very good at focusing on helping others while still retaining enough energy and compassion for myself. But now that I have recovered enough to transition out of survival mode (for the most part), I want to change that.

I think one way to do this is to let go of the idea of "pure" altruism and kill two birds with one stone. What I mean is, look for ways to get involved in helping your community that also benefits your mental health. For instance, I'm very anxious, so I tend to isolate myself, but I'm also very extroverted, so isolation isn't actually good for me. I can fulfill my responsibilities to both myself and the world around me by volunteering to work with groups of people for a good cause.

In the video below, I talk more about my responsibilities both to myself and to the world around me and how I'm working to balance them.

How do you balance your mental health recovery and social responsibility? Share your comments below.